Contrary to what you might think, wages are only a small part of your total expenses in the restaurant business. Food costs are the single biggest expense. If you pay a little more to get reliable people who don’t steal and managers who are good at minimizing overhead, you’ll actually do better.

That said, I don’t think a “living wage” law can work. You would ultimately wind up costing full-time jobs in favor of more part-time jobs.

This underscores a problem, though: there just aren’t enough good-paying full-time jobs in this country. So the real answer, it seems, isn’t to force people to pay good wages for crap jobs; the answer is to attract/create more GOOD jobs.

How about the manufacturing jobs that we’ve sent to Mexico and China? That would seem to be a good start…

the best way to explain In-N-Out is that its the Krispy Kreme of burger joints…they have the highest customer satisfaction in the industry and a cult-like following. They are only in the Southwestern US right now (Nevada, California, Arizona). The prices are slightly higher than McD’s but the quality is better too.